Three Biblical Reasons The Reformed Should Read Ancient And Medieval Theologians

In my experience among the reformed and confessional, I’ve found that we are generally familiar with the Protestant Reformation: the major reasons for controversy, the doings of Reformers like Luther and Calvin, and our own strain of reformed theology, whether Dutch, English, or Scottish. We look back to that era in church history with gratefulness and dig into its written legacy for insight. Further back than that, our knowledge commonly lapses. We may give some ancient Church Fathers the vague respect of a name-drop, especially Augustine of Hippo and Athanasius of Alexandria, but we haven’t read them deeply. Our engagement with those thinkers between the Fathers and the Reformers, the medieval theologians, is typically nil. The result is that, in our historical theology knowledge, there is a hole between Acts and us, the reformed.

But ought that to be so? Is it right for the confessionally reformed to ignore centuries of church history? Is it profitable for us to neglect the legacy of the ancients and the medievals? As the trend of my questions shows, I don’t think that the reformed merely can read these older writers: I believe that we should. Here are three biblical reasons why.

THE UNKILLABLE CHURCH (Matt 16:15-18)

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

This passage from Matthew is for ecclesiology both a commonplace and a battleground. I don’t intend to sort out what our Lord’s Petros/petra wordplay implies. Instead, I want to focus on Christ’s promise in the last clause: “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” 

Often this passage, where the ESV echoes the KJV’s “gates of hell” rendering, leads us to visualize the church weathering assault from demonic armies. This interpretation actually inverts Christ’s metaphor. First, a gate (pyla) is an entrance—the gate of a city—and therefore a defensive structure, not offensive. Whether keeping armies out or prisoners in, gates are attacked, not attacking. 

The second element of the phrase, “of hell” (hadou), referred first to Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. His name was a metonym in the Hellenistic world for the abode of the dead, even among Greek-speakers who did not venerate Hades himself. Thus, the “gates of Hades” is not a demonic army, but instead the impassable barrier between life and death.

And yet the impassable barrier was passed. While Christ raised a few people from the dead during His ministry (Lazarus, Jairus’ daughter, a widow’s son), they presumably died again later. However, Christ passed Himself through the “gates of hell” in His resurrection, never to enter them again. The impassable barrier was definitively breached.

This definitive breach of death’s domain depends on another magnificent truth in Peter’s affirmation: Jesus is “the Son of the living God.” This common OT divine title (Deut 5:26, Ps 42:2, Dan 6:26, etc.) contrasts God’s vital existence and activity with the unreal and inert false gods. But in John 5, Jesus unpacks God’s “livingness”: God lives in an absolute and ultimate sense (v. 26), and therefore not only can he create life but also impart life to the dead (v. 21). Jesus, as the Son of the living God, also has this divine life and so is God’s agent in the final resurrection (v. 26-29). 

The “gates of hell” were thus broken down by the only person who both could die (as man) and yet possessed ultimate life (as God). Jesus could enter those gates, but they could never hold him back. When we apply this insight to Matthew 16, we see that Christ shares his own unrestrainable life with his church: “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” For a persecuted Christian, Jesus’ promise to Peter in Matthew 15:18 is an anchor for faith: God’s enemies may kill many of us, but God’s living church can never, ever be defeated by death. The church is unkillable.

How does Matthew 16 prepare us to engage rightly with ancient and medieval theologians? If Christ’s church is unkillable, then the church existed in those centuries between the Apostles and the Reformers. She may have looked different—dressed, believed, and practiced differently from our own congregations—but she was alive with the very life of God. Since this was the case, what Christ and the Apostles taught about God’s life and activity in the church happened in those centuries we know little about. And that truth has implications about how we engage with those theologians.

A GIFT WITH A GOAL (Eph 4:7-9, 11-13)

But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? [...] And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

The church is undeniably a human institution. All its visible activities—worship, teaching, shepherding, service—are done by humans, especially church leaders. A church community functions because those leaders plan and act. Because of that, when we turn to the Bible to hear what it says about church leadership, we most frequently focus on 1 Timothy or Titus—Paul’s directions for what leaders should be and do. But this approach to church leadership tempts us to believe the life of the church itself depends on those leaders. 

Thanks be to God that this isn’t the case, as Paul makes plain in Ephesians 4! As we have already seen in Matthew 16, the church’s life is built not on our frail humanity, but on Jesus Christ, the risen Son of the living God. And according to Paul, that even includes the work of our human leaders in the church community. How? 

In Ephesians, Paul eagerly shows the great wealth Christ has won for His elect: new life, redemption, forgiveness, adoption, holiness, wisdom, an inheritance in glory—in short, “every spiritual blessing” (1:3). After three chapters of Gospel grandeur, Paul then turns to application, exhorting the Ephesian church to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling” (4:1). But this “worthy walk” is not only a response to Christ’s gifts: it is itself a gift from the One who “ascended” and “gave gifts to men” (4:8). 

Attentive readers are not surprised by Paul’s move here. Earlier in Ephesians, he describes the enthronement of the risen Christ as the culmination of His salvation work (1:20, 2:5-6). Now the risen Christ grounds an earthier reality: the practical life of the present church community. But what is His gift to that community, the gift that enables the “worthy walk”? People! Specifically, the leaders of the church community—apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds (pastors), and teachers. 

What is the purpose of these church leaders? Commentators disagree on how to interpret the offices in this passage, but Paul is clear that all have one overarching goal: “the fullness of Christ” (4:13). Paul mentioned this goal in Eph 1:23, when he referred to the church as Christ’s “body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” But don’t we already have the “fullness of Christ”? Yes and no: our inheritance is sealed and guaranteed, but we do not yet possess it (1:13-14). We are adopted heirs (1:5, 11), but we are not yet mature adults (4:13). As Calvin says of this passage, “At no period of this life are we men.” That is what these church leaders are for. The goal of this gift is nothing less than our experienced “fullness” as God’s children renewed in the image of the only Son.

Also, we should consider more closely how Paul describes this goal. It includes “the unity of the faith,” “the knowledge of the Son of God,” and “mature manhood” (4:13). To paraphrase, these descriptions tell us that “fullness” includes complete concord, understanding, and virtue. We fall short of this “fullness” today, but it’s important not to imagine that the church once had these traits and lost them. With the phrase “until we all attain,” Paul says that the church of the apostolic age had not reached this goal! Even this apostle—an author of inspired scripture and a witness to the resurrected Lord—saw the “fullness of Christ” as a reality that lay yet in the future for God’s children. While those who follow the Apostles are to pass on what they have received (1 Tim. 6:20), they are not to be just caretakers of the past: the Lord also uses them to lead His people “further up and further in,” toward the future goal.

How does Eph 4 prepare us to engage rightly with ancient and medieval theologians? I want to draw out three applications. First, one visible way the risen Christ upholds His church is by giving them leaders, including teachers. If the church is unkillable as Matt 16 says, then not only was she alive in the centuries between the Apostles and Reformers, but the teachers of those centuries are visible signs of that life. Second, these church leaders are gifts from Christ, and not only to their specific community: Paul’s focus is the whole church, in its unity and fullness. Therefore, ancient and medieval theologians are gifts from Christ to us—and the proper response to a gift is thankful acceptance! Third, the goal of these gifts is “the fullness of Christ,” as teachers guide learners into concord, understanding, and virtue. If the church has grown since the time of the Apostles—and it has—then ancient and medieval teachers played a part in that growth, and we benefited from their faithfulness.

A DEBT OF HONOR (1 Tim 5:17-18)

The elders who lead well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”

Compared to the first two points, my last is short and simple. It is, however, grounded in those points. If Christ’s life sustains His church through the ages, and if the life is seen through His gift of church leaders, including teachers, how should we respond in light of these truths? Paul’s instruction in 1 Timothy 5:17 answers our question directly: we should honor teachers. But how?

First, the phrase “worthy of double honor” implies that there is already an honor that rightly attends the office of church leader. All leaders serving in that capacity should be respected for their service, even if they are not the most talented, eloquent, or charismatic. Even if the sermon or lesson is dull, if God’s word was faithfully presented, that preacher or teacher deserves respect. In these days of podcasts, celebrity speakers, and internet sermon archives, it is easy to forget this, but it is true nonetheless.

Second, effectiveness in leadership, especially preaching and teaching, earns “double honor.”  We should not be surprised that Paul emphasizes preaching and teaching as a priority for elders. Elsewhere in 1 Timothy, he lists “able to teach” as a requirement for overseers (3:2), while in Titus he specifies that elders must be able to “give instruction in sound doctrine” and “rebuke those who contradict” (1:9). Paul’s high regard for teachers is easy to explain: if teachers are the risen Lord’s gift to His church, with the goal of maturing the church into “the fullness of Christ,” then those teachers who “work hard” and effectively toward that goal are indeed praiseworthy.

Third, Paul indicates that this “double honor” isn’t just respect for excellence: it is a debt. We owe honor to these teachers. It is provender for the hungry ox; it is wages for the sweating laborer. Elsewhere, Paul cites these same principles to argue that ministers of the Gospel should receive financial support. But it ought not stop there. Teachers stand in relation to their students not as mere hirelings or service-providers: a teacher’s role is parental, so a student’s role ought to be filial. It may seem odd in our culture, but Christians of most eras readily saw that “honor thy father” led properly to “honor thy teachers.” And what honor do our “fathers in the faith” most desire? To be heard, understood, and heeded. John says it best: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 1:4).

How does 1 Timothy 5 give us our final reason for engaging with ancient and medieval theologians? As we saw in section two, Ephesians 4 treats Christian teachers not merely as worthy servants of their own congregations, but as one of the risen Lord’s instruments for transforming His children into their final mature form. The teaching office of the church is not merely useful or (if skillful) entertaining: it is a sign of divine life among God’s people and the foretaste of their destiny. Therefore, this teacher is not simply Christ’s gift to that church—all teachers are Christ’s gift to the whole church! If that is the case, those ancient and medieval theologians we neglect are our teachers too. And that means, according to 1 Timothy 5, that we should give them honor. Not the honor of paying their wages, of course: they have gone on to a reward beyond our meager means. But we can pay them the honor of listening to what they had to say, learning from them, and “walking in the truth” they taught. We owe it to them as good teachers. More importantly, we owe it to our Lord to receive His gifts with gratitude, and to make use of them as He intended.

Dr. Grubbs spoke on this subject at WSI’s 2024 Equipped by the Word Conference.

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